Sections: Information | Plot Description | Reviews | Teacher Ideas
Information
- First published:
- January 19, 1952 issue of The New Yorker
- Connections:
- Protagonist has the same name as protagonist in “Mr. Botibol”.
- Related books:
- 5 Bestsellers Including Over 40 Tales of the Unexpected
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: More Stories My Mother Never Told Me
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories My Mother Never Told Me
- An Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Sampler
- Best Horror Stories 3
- Completely Unexpected Tales
- Lifestyles
- Madness
- Men and Women
- Reading for Pleasure
- Sail Away: Stories of Escaping to Sea
- Sea-Cursed: 30 Terrifying Tales of the Deep
- Selected Stories of Roald Dahl
- Short Story 17
- Skin and Other Stories
- Someone Like You
- Take Along Treasury
- Tales of the Unexpected
- Tales of the Unexpected (Volume 1)
- The Best of Roald Dahl
- The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl
- The Complete Short Stories: Volume One
- The Roald Dahl Omnibus
- Magazine publications:
- Audio Books:
- “Dip in the Pool” read by Adrian Scarborough
- “Einsatz / Der Weltmeister” read by Martin Benrath and Josef Manof
- Someone Like You read by Julian Rhind-Tutt, Stephen Mangan, Tamsin Greig, Derek Jacobi, Richard Griffiths, Willl Self, Jessica Hynes, Juliet Stevenson, Adrian Scarborough, Richard E. Grant
- Tales of the Unexpected read by Geoffrey Palmer, Joanna David, Tom Hollander, Patricia Routledge, and Joanna Lumley
- TV Shows:
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958)
- Danger (1954)
- Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
- Uit de wereld van Roald Dahl (1975)
Plot Description
This story is an exercise in subtlety, from the gentle joke of its title to the surprise catch at its ending. The main character, Mr. Botibol, also has the same name as the protagonist from another Dahl story, “Mr. Botibol”.
Spoiler warning! Mr. Botibol is traveling across the ocean in a large ship and wants desperately to win the passenger auction. Each night the captain of the ship estimates the distance that they will cover in 24 hours, and a range of possible numbers are then auctioned off to the guests. Whoever owns the correct number the next day wins the amount of money in the pool. Mr. Botibol notices that the sea has suddenly gotten rough and that this will surely slow down the ship and throw off the captain’s estimate. Confident in victory, then, he uses his life savings to win the “low field” number (meaning any number more than 10 less than the estimate). When he wakes up the next morning, though, the sea is calm and the ship is making up for lost time. Mr. Botibol arrives at the desperate conclusion that jumping overboard is the only way to slow down the ship and therefore win the pool. He plans his strategy very deliberately – he will wear light tennis clothes (so he can swim better), he will make sure another person witnesses his “fall” and reports it to the captain, and he will swim as far from the ship as possible so that it must turn completely astern to pick him up. He finds the deck deserted except for one older woman. After talking to her briefly he concludes that she is neither deaf nor blind, and within moments he has plunged into the water screaming for help. The woman acts confused for a moment, then relaxes and watches the small bobbing man get further and further away. At the very end of the story, a bony woman comes out to collect the older lady and admonishes her for “wandering about.” The old woman is seemingly a mental patient!
Reviews
- “The Art of Vengeance” by Joyce Carol Oates (The New York Review of Books)
- “Getting Even” by Stephen Amidon (The Nation)
Teacher Ideas
- “Dip in the Pool” – Additional Classroom Question
- Suggested additional question for "Classroom Activities"
- “Dip in the Pool” – Classroom Activities
- Includes a number of questions and exercises pertaining to the story